Allegri: Miserere
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Composer: Gregorio AllegriComposer: William Mundy
Composer: Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina
Performer: Michael Chance
Performer: Joseph Cornwell
Performer: Jane Armstrong
Performer: Judith Stell
Performer: Ruth Duncan
Performer: Julia Williams
Performer: Alison Stamp
Performer: Andrew King
Performer: Douglas Leigh
Performer: Colin Scott Mason
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2005-11-15
Music Label: Gimell UK
Music reviews of Allegri: Miserere
Music Review: Stellar, although the Mundy would be better at today's written pitch
Rating: 5 Stars
There is no question about this CD being one of the finest of its métier and type that was ever recorded, period!! Great ensemble work (to the point where all the singers' identity melts into the cohesive whole), excellent sound engineering and superlative repertoire! While I have my qualms about the Latin pronunciation (the Italian version of "Church" Latin, with its disregard of certain spellings and consequent voiding of the real sounds the language used to have, really grates on the nerves of this writer - who'd rather go back to what our philologists tell us would have been the authentic Latin of Cæsar or Augustus), everything else is so convincingly and completely done to the best as to carry such faults before it! [My other quibble relates to the pitch of the William Mundy motet being raised by a full minor-third, following the recommendations of some of today's scholars: given the voice-ranges called for in this 6-part work (SSAATB, where a couple of sections seem even to call for divided parts, though 6 soloists with the right ranges can do it full justice nevertheless), raising the pitch pushes voices to near to the top limit of their ability so the consequent strain is already tangible (fortunately, not in an unpleasant way on this recording) - leaving it untransposed has it feel much more natural.]
The other reviewer has already written more than enough about the Allegri Miserere and Palestrina "Missa Papæ Marcelli"; I'd like to focus more on the Mundy "Vox Patris Coelestis" (proper Latin uses "cOelum" instead of "cAelum", pronounced "ko-EE-loom" as opposed to "chA-loom"). This is a true revelation of a work (even if those of us who lean to Protestantism will squirm with the excessive quantity of praise lavished upon the Virgin Mary!). While supposedly lacking "any strong directional melodic or rhythmic impetus" (terms perhaps better associated with the great tonal corpus of works from ca. 1650 to 1900 - this music after all is very much still associated with the old church modes that governed everything until 1660), the masterful way in which the polyphony is handled in addition to how the actual melodic lines (and yes, the work is very melodic nonetheless!!) don't lose their purity in spite of their ornateness in addition to how they blend both vertically (harmonically) and horizontally (contrapuntally) is absolutely awesome! Also noteworthy is the inexorability the work develops as it progresses.
Yes, the words do frequently have a hard time making their impact because of the composer's not making them a top priority (though there's no question of their fully inspiring this work!). [The Counter-Reformation would have had to condemn this work in that regard, alas: the charge was that composers focussed so much on their polyphony as well as putting all sorts of flourishes and ornaments into their music so the words couldn't be heard. The Palestrina Mass, on the other hand, was written in part (at least according to a legend) to prove that polyphony and words getting their audibility due COULD co-exist.] On the other hand, this work truly transports the listener to the point of readily being at one with what the Church wanted to be emphasised: the ecstatic state of the blessed people (especially saints!) after their deaths, welcomed into the Heavenly Company. With this music, one truly reaches into the topmost circle of Heaven, as Dante Alighieri put it, where the word can't go any further - every bit as much for certain as with the Palestrina work (this writer, in fact, prefers the Mundy on account of its greater expressivity).
No questions whatever about its being 100% and more recommended!!!
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